3fe603615afc858428bc085f345fca3ee12314d5
[binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.10
5
6 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
7
8 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
9 when using the Intel(R) Processor Trace recording format.
10
11 * New commands
12
13 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
14 maint show target-non-stop
15 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
16 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
17 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
18
19 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
20
21 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
22 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
23 including advance SIMD instructions.
24
25 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
26
27 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
28 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
29 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
30 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
31 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
32 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
33 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
34
35 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
36 cpu information :
37 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
38
39 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
40 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
41 remote serial I/O.
42
43 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
44 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
45 and may include things like its command line arguments.
46
47 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
48 is now available on all platforms.
49
50 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
51 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
52 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
53 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
54 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
55 backward compatibility.
56
57 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
58 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
59 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
60 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
61
62 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
63 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
64 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
65 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
66 packets" below.
67
68 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
69
70 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
71
72 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
73 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
74 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
75 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
76 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
77 See "New remote packets" below.
78
79 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
80 available register groups, including target specific groups.
81
82 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
83 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
84 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
85 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
86 are ignored.
87
88 * Guile Scripting
89
90 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
91
92 * Python Scripting
93
94 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
95 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
96 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
97 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
98 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
99 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
100 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
101 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
102 "const" version of the value respectively.
103
104 * New commands
105
106 maint print symbol-cache
107 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
108
109 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
110 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
111
112 maint flush-symbol-cache
113 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
114
115 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
116 maint show target-non-stop
117 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
118 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
119 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
120
121 record btrace bts
122 record bts
123 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
124
125 compile print
126 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
127
128 tui enable
129 tui disable
130 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
131
132 show mpx bound
133 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
134 Support for bound table investigation on Intel(R) MPX enabled applications.
135
136 record btrace pt
137 record pt
138 Start branch trace recording using Intel(R) Processor Trace format.
139
140 maint info btrace
141 Print information about branch tracing internals.
142
143 maint btrace packet-history
144 Print the raw branch tracing data.
145
146 maint btrace clear-packet-history
147 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
148
149 maint btrace clear
150 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
151 anew by the next "record" command.
152
153 * New options
154
155 set debug dwarf-die
156 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
157 show debug dwarf-die
158 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
159
160 set debug dwarf-read
161 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
162 show debug dwarf-read
163 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
164
165 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
166 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
167 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
168 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
169
170 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
171 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
172 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
173 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
174
175 set debug dwarf-line
176 show debug dwarf-line
177 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
178
179 set max-completions
180 show max-completions
181 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
182 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
183 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
184 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
185
186 set history remove-duplicates
187 show history remove-duplicates
188 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
189
190 maint set symbol-cache-size
191 maint show symbol-cache-size
192 Control the size of the symbol cache.
193
194 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
195 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
196 BTS format.
197 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
198 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
199
200 set debug linux-namespaces
201 show debug linux-namespaces
202 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
203
204 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
205 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
206 Intel(R) Processor Trace format.
207 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
208 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
209
210 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
211 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
212 packet history.
213
214 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
215 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
216
217 * Python/Guile scripting
218
219 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
220 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
221
222 * New remote packets
223
224 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
225 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
226
227 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
228 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
229
230 Qbtrace:pt
231 Enable Intel(R) Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
232 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
233 qSupported query.
234
235 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
236 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel(R) Processor
237 Trace format.
238
239 swbreak stop reason
240 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
241 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
242 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
243 mode operation.
244
245 hwbreak stop reason
246 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
247 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
248
249 vFile:fstat:
250 Return information about files on the remote system.
251
252 qXfer:exec-file:read
253 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
254 create a process running on the remote system.
255
256 vFile:setfs:
257 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
258 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
259 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
260 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
261
262 fork stop reason
263 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
264
265 vfork stop reason
266 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
267
268 vforkdone stop reason
269 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
270 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
271
272 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
273 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
274 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
275 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
276 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
277 whether these features are enabled.
278
279 * Extended-remote fork events
280
281 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
282 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
283 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
284 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
285
286 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
287 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
288 the btrace record target.
289 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
290
291 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
292 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
293
294 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
295 targets.
296
297 * Removed command line options
298
299 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
300
301 * Removed targets and native configurations
302
303 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
304 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
305
306 * New configure options
307
308 --with-intel-pt
309 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
310 Intel(R) Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
311
312 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
313 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
314 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
315 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
316
317 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
318
319 * Python Scripting
320
321 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
322
323 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
324
325 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
326
327 * Python Scripting
328
329 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
330 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
331 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
332 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
333 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
334 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
335 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
336 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
337 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
338 selecting a new file to debug.
339 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
340 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
341
342 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
343 inferior.
344
345 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
346 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
347 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
348 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
349
350 * New Python-based convenience functions:
351
352 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
353 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
354 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
355 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
356
357 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
358 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
359 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
360 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
361 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
362 interface with this new feature are:
363
364 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
365 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
366
367 * New commands
368
369 demangle [-l language] [--] name
370 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
371 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
372 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
373 as "maint demangler-warning".
374
375 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
376 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
377
378 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
379 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
380 scripts.
381
382 maint print user-registers
383 List all currently available "user" registers.
384
385 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
386 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
387 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
388
389 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
390 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
391 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
392 provided.
393
394 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
395 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
396 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
397 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
398 at resume time.
399
400 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
401 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
402 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
403 switched threads meanwhile.
404
405 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
406
407 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
408 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
409 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
410 is now the default mode.
411
412 * New options
413
414 set debug symbol-lookup
415 show debug symbol-lookup
416 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
417
418 * MI changes
419
420 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
421 inferiors that have exited.
422
423 * New targets
424
425 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
426
427 * Removed targets
428
429 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
430
431 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
432 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
433 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
434 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
435 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
436
437 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
438 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
439 its alias "share", instead.
440
441 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
442
443 * New command line options
444
445 -D data-directory
446 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
447
448 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
449 as specified in ISO C99.
450
451 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
452 with or without disassembly.
453
454 * Guile scripting
455
456 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
457 available is determined at configure time.
458 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
459 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
460
461 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
462
463 guile [code]
464 gu [code]
465 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
466
467 guile-repl
468 gr
469 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
470
471 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
472 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
473
474 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
475 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
476
477 * New options
478
479 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
480 show print symbol-loading
481 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
482 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
483 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
484 becomes less useful.
485
486 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
487 show guile print-stack
488 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
489
490 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
491 show auto-load guile-scripts
492 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
493
494 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
495 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
496 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
497 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
498 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
499 usage of this option.
500
501 set auto-connect-native-target
502
503 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
504 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
505 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
506
507 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
508 show record btrace replay-memory-access
509 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
510
511 maint set target-async (on|off)
512 maint show target-async
513 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
514 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
515 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
516 occurring only in synchronous mode.
517
518 set mi-async (on|off)
519 show mi-async
520 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
521 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
522
523 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
524 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
525
526 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
527 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
528 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
529 "set target-async on" command.
530
531 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
532
533 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
534 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
535 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
536 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
537 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
538
539 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
540 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
541 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
542
543 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
544 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
545 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
546 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
547 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
548 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
549 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
550
551 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
552 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
553
554 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
555 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
556 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
557
558 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
559 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
560 memory or registers.
561
562 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
563
564 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
565 remote. It now works with all targets.
566
567 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
568 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
569 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
570 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
571 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
572 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
573 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
574 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
575 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
576 target-stack".
577
578 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
579 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
580 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
581
582 * GDB now supports access to Intel(R) MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
583
584 * Support for Intel(R) AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
585 Support displaying and modifying Intel(R) AVX-512 registers
586 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
587
588 * New remote packets
589
590 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
591 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
592 branch trace incrementally.
593
594 * Python Scripting
595
596 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
597 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
598 available.
599 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
600 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
601 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
602 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
603 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
604
605 * New targets
606 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
607
608 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
609 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
610 its alias "share", instead.
611
612 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
613 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
614 instead.
615
616 * MI changes
617
618 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
619 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
620 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
621 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
622 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
623 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
624 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
625 commands and CLI execution commands.
626
627 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
628
629 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
630 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
631 recording has been added.
632
633 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
634
635 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
636 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
637
638 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
639 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
640 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
641 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
642 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
643 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
644 "void".
645
646 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
647
648 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
649
650 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
651 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
652 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
653 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
654
655 (gdb) p $rax
656 $1 = <not saved>
657
658 (gdb) info registers rax
659 rax <not saved>
660
661 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
662 "*value not available*".
663
664 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
665 to binaries.
666
667 * Python scripting
668
669 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
670 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
671 ** Line tables representation has been added.
672 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
673 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
674 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
675
676 * New targets
677
678 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
679 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
680 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
681
682 * Removed native configurations
683
684 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
685 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
686
687 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
688 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
689 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
690 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
691 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
692 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
693 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
694
695 * New commands:
696 catch rethrow
697 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
698 maint check-psymtabs
699 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
700 maint check-symtabs
701 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
702 maint expand-symtabs
703 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
704
705 show configuration
706 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
707
708 maint set|show per-command
709 maint set|show per-command space
710 maint set|show per-command time
711 maint set|show per-command symtab
712 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
713
714 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
715 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
716 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
717 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
718 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
719
720 info exceptions
721 info exceptions REGEXP
722 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
723 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
724 are listed.
725
726 * New options
727
728 set debug symfile off|on
729 show debug symfile
730 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
731 symbol tables within those files
732
733 set print raw frame-arguments
734 show print raw frame-arguments
735 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
736 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
737
738 set remote trace-status-packet
739 show remote trace-status-packet
740 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
741
742 set debug nios2
743 show debug nios2
744 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
745
746 set range-stepping
747 show range-stepping
748 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
749
750 set startup-with-shell
751 show startup-with-shell
752 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
753 directly.
754
755 set code-cache
756 show code-cache
757 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
758 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
759
760 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
761 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
762 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
763 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
764 "set height 0".
765
766 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
767 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
768 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
769
770 * New command-line options
771 --configuration
772 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
773
774 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
775 buffer in Common Trace Format.
776
777 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
778 GDB command gcore.
779
780 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
781
782 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
783 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
784
785 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
786 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
787
788 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
789 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
790 due to an uncaught signal.
791
792 * MI changes
793
794 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
795 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
796 command, which should contain "language-option".
797
798 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
799 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
800
801 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
802 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
803 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
804 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
805 "undefined-command-error-code".
806
807 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
808 Trace Format now.
809
810 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
811
812 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
813 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
814 are displayed.
815
816 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
817 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
818
819 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
820 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
821 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
822
823 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
824 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
825 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
826 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
827 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
828 "exec-run-start-option".
829
830 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
831 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
832
833 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
834 the new "info exceptions" command.
835
836 * New system-wide configuration scripts
837 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
838 configuration scripts for the following systems:
839 ** ElinOS
840 ** Wind River Linux
841
842 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
843 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
844 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
845 below.
846
847 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
848 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
849
850 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
851 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
852 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
853
854 * New remote packets
855
856 vCont;r
857
858 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
859 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
860 involvemement at each single-step.
861
862 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
863 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
864 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
865 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
866 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
867 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
868 speedup.
869
870 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
871
872 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
873 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
874
875 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
876 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
877 trace state variables.
878
879 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
880 target.
881
882 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
883 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
884
885 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
886
887 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
888 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
889 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
890 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
891
892 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
893
894 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
895 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
896 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
897 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
898
899 set|show record full insn-number-max
900 set|show record full stop-at-limit
901 set|show record full memory-query
902
903 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
904 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
905 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
906 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
907 This new recording method can be enabled using:
908
909 record btrace
910
911 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
912 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
913
914 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
915 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
916 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
917
918 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
919 instruction granularity
920
921 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
922 function granularity
923
924 * New native configurations
925
926 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
927 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
928 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
929 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
930
931 * New targets
932
933 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
934 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
935 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
936 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
937 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
938
939 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
940 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
941 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
942 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
943 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
944 --data-directory command-line option.
945
946 * New command line options:
947
948 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
949 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
950
951 * Removed command line options
952
953 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
954 Emacs.
955
956 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
957 type formatting.
958
959 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
960
961 * Python scripting
962
963 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
964
965 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
966
967 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
968
969 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
970
971 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
972 of architecture in the Python API.
973
974 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
975 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
976
977 * New Python-based convenience functions:
978
979 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
980 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
981 ** $_strlen(str)
982 ** $_regex(str, regex)
983
984 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
985 given an argument.
986
987 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
988 default for GCC since November 2000.
989
990 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
991
992 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
993 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
994
995 * New configure options
996
997 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
998 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
999 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
1000 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
1001 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
1002 options allow the user to override that default.
1003 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
1004 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
1005 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
1006
1007 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1008
1009 catch signal
1010 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
1011 conditions to be attached.
1012
1013 maint info bfds
1014 List the BFDs known to GDB.
1015
1016 python-interactive [command]
1017 pi [command]
1018 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
1019 and print the result of expressions.
1020
1021 py [command]
1022 "py" is a new alias for "python".
1023
1024 enable type-printer [name]...
1025 disable type-printer [name]...
1026 Enable or disable type printers.
1027
1028 * Removed commands
1029
1030 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
1031 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
1032 instead.
1033
1034 * New options
1035
1036 set print type methods (on|off)
1037 show print type methods
1038 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
1039 The default is to show them.
1040
1041 set print type typedefs (on|off)
1042 show print type typedefs
1043 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
1044 The default is to show them.
1045
1046 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
1047 show filename-display
1048 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
1049 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
1050
1051 set trace-buffer-size
1052 show trace-buffer-size
1053 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
1054
1055 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
1056 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
1057 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
1058
1059 set debug aarch64
1060 show debug aarch64
1061 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
1062 The default is off.
1063
1064 set debug coff-pe-read
1065 show debug coff-pe-read
1066 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
1067 exported symbols.
1068
1069 set debug mach-o
1070 show debug mach-o
1071 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
1072 processing.
1073
1074 set debug notification
1075 show debug notification
1076 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
1077
1078 * MI changes
1079
1080 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
1081 "=cmd-param-changed".
1082 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
1083 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
1084 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
1085 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
1086 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
1087 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
1088 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
1089 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
1090 "=memory-changed".
1091 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
1092 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
1093 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
1094 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
1095 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
1096 library load/unload events.
1097 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
1098 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
1099 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
1100 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
1101 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
1102 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
1103 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
1104 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
1105
1106 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
1107 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
1108 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
1109 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
1110
1111 * New remote packets
1112
1113 QTBuffer:size
1114 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
1115 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1116
1117 Qbtrace:bts
1118 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
1119 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
1120 qSupported query.
1121
1122 Qbtrace:off
1123 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
1124 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1125
1126 qXfer:btrace:read
1127 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
1128 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1129
1130 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
1131
1132 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
1133 for more x32 ABI info.
1134
1135 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
1136
1137 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
1138
1139 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1140 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
1141 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
1142 "info os files" lists file descriptors
1143 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
1144 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
1145 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
1146 "info os msg" lists message queues
1147 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
1148
1149 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
1150 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
1151 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
1152 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
1153 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
1154 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
1155
1156 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
1157 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
1158 record/replay support.
1159
1160 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
1161
1162 * Python scripting
1163
1164 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
1165 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
1166
1167 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
1168
1169 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
1170 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
1171
1172 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
1173
1174 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
1175 the source at which the symbol was defined.
1176
1177 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
1178 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
1179 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
1180 symbol's value.
1181
1182 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
1183 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
1184
1185 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
1186 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
1187 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
1188
1189 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
1190 object associated with a PC value.
1191
1192 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
1193 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
1194
1195 * Go language support.
1196 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
1197 language.
1198
1199 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
1200 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
1201
1202 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
1203 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
1204
1205 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
1206 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
1207 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
1208 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
1209 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
1210 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
1211
1212 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
1213 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
1214 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
1215 build/libcpp/expr.c.
1216
1217 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
1218 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
1219
1220 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
1221 since December 2007.
1222
1223 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
1224 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
1225 command does. For instance:
1226
1227 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
1228
1229 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
1230 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
1231 created, using the "condition" command.
1232
1233 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
1234 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
1235
1236 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
1237
1238 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
1239 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
1240 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
1241 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
1242 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
1243 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
1244 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
1245 files with older .gdb_index sections.
1246
1247 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
1248 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
1249 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
1250 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
1251 the .gdb_index section.
1252
1253 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
1254
1255 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
1256 target.
1257
1258 * MI changes
1259
1260 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
1261
1262 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
1263
1264 * New commands
1265
1266 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1267 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1268 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
1269
1270 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
1271 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
1272
1273 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
1274 several hits.
1275
1276 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
1277 C++ and Java objects.
1278
1279 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
1280 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
1281 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
1282 configured with '--with-python'.
1283
1284 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
1285 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
1286 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
1287 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
1288 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
1289 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
1290 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
1291
1292 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
1293 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
1294 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
1295 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
1296
1297 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
1298 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
1299 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
1300 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
1301
1302 ** "set print symbol"
1303 "show print symbol"
1304 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
1305 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
1306 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
1307
1308 * Deprecated commands
1309
1310 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
1311 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
1312
1313 * New targets
1314
1315 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1316 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
1317
1318 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
1319 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
1320 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
1321 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
1322 evaluates to true.
1323
1324 * New options
1325
1326 set mips compression
1327 show mips compression
1328 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
1329 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
1330 mips16
1331 micromips
1332 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
1333
1334 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
1335 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
1336 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
1337 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
1338 available mode.
1339 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
1340 target.
1341
1342 set auto-load off
1343 Disable auto-loading globally.
1344
1345 show auto-load
1346 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
1347
1348 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
1349 show auto-load gdb-scripts
1350 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
1351
1352 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
1353 show auto-load python-scripts
1354 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
1355
1356 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
1357 show auto-load local-gdbinit
1358 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
1359
1360 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
1361 show auto-load libthread-db
1362 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
1363
1364 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1365 show auto-load scripts-directory
1366 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
1367 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
1368 of the directories listed by this option.
1369 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1370
1371 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1372 show auto-load safe-path
1373 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
1374 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1375
1376 set debug auto-load on|off
1377 show debug auto-load
1378 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
1379
1380 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
1381 show dprintf-style
1382 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
1383 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
1384 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
1385 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
1386
1387 set dprintf-function <expr>
1388 show dprintf-function
1389 set dprintf-channel <expr>
1390 show dprintf-channel
1391 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
1392 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
1393
1394 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
1395 show disconnected-dprintf
1396 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
1397 after GDB disconnects.
1398
1399 * New configure options
1400
1401 --with-auto-load-dir
1402 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1403 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
1404 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
1405 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
1406 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
1407
1408 --with-auto-load-safe-path
1409 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
1410 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
1411
1412 --without-auto-load-safe-path
1413 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
1414 security feature.
1415
1416 * New remote packets
1417
1418 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
1419
1420 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
1421 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
1422 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
1423 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
1424
1425 QProgramSignals:
1426
1427 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
1428 program without GDB involvement.
1429
1430 * New command line options
1431
1432 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
1433 before loading inferior.
1434 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
1435 execute it before loading inferior.
1436
1437 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
1438
1439 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
1440 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
1441 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
1442 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
1443 inferior changes.
1444
1445 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
1446 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
1447
1448 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
1449 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
1450 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
1451 target hardware watchpoint.
1452
1453 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
1454 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
1455 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
1456 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
1457
1458 * Python scripting
1459
1460 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
1461 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
1462 existing one.
1463
1464 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
1465 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
1466 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
1467 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
1468 now "message", which just prints the error message without
1469 the stack trace.
1470
1471 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
1472 Python API.
1473
1474 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
1475 modules library. This module provides functionality for
1476 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
1477 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
1478 corresponding value.
1479
1480 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
1481 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
1482 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
1483 on GDB start-up.
1484
1485 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
1486 static_block will return the global and static blocks
1487 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
1488 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
1489
1490 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
1491
1492 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
1493 "gdb.breakpoints".
1494
1495 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
1496 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
1497 available in the CLI.
1498
1499 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
1500 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
1501 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
1502 "some_type.items()".
1503
1504 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
1505 new object file.
1506
1507 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
1508 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
1509 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
1510 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
1511 any anonymous fields.
1512
1513 * MI changes
1514
1515 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
1516 "solib-event".
1517
1518 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1519 "=breakpoint-modified".
1520
1521 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1522
1523 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1524 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1525 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
1526 lives.
1527
1528 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1529 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1530 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1531 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1532 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1533
1534 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1535 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1536
1537 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1538 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1539 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1540 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1541 use this option to specify where to find it.
1542
1543 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1544 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1545 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1546 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1547 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1548 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1549 section in the user manual for more details.
1550
1551 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
1552 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
1553 become available after that.
1554
1555 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
1556
1557 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
1558 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
1559 gcc version 4.7.
1560
1561 * New commands
1562
1563 !SHELL COMMAND
1564 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
1565 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
1566
1567 * Changed commands
1568
1569 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
1570 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
1571 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
1572
1573 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
1574 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
1575 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
1576
1577 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
1578 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
1579 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
1580 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
1581 name starts with a hyphen.
1582
1583 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
1584 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
1585 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
1586 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
1587 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
1588 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
1589 number of bytes that will be collected.
1590
1591 tstart [NOTES]
1592 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
1593 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
1594 setting the variable trace-notes.
1595
1596 tstop [NOTES]
1597 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
1598 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
1599 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
1600 trace-stop-notes.
1601
1602 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
1603 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
1604 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
1605 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
1606 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
1607 is running.
1608
1609 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
1610 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
1611 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
1612
1613 * New options
1614
1615 set debug dwarf2-read
1616 show debug dwarf2-read
1617 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
1618 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
1619
1620 set debug symtab-create
1621 show debug symtab-create
1622 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
1623 creation. The default is off.
1624
1625 set extended-prompt
1626 show extended-prompt
1627 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
1628 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
1629 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
1630 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
1631 prompt is displayed.
1632
1633 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1634 show print entry-values
1635 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1636 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1637 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1638
1639 set debug entry-values
1640 show debug entry-values
1641 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1642 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1643
1644 set basenames-may-differ
1645 show basenames-may-differ
1646 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1647 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1648 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1649 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1650 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1651 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1652 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1653 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1654
1655 set trace-user
1656 show trace-user
1657 set trace-notes
1658 show trace-notes
1659 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1660 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1661 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1662 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1663
1664 set trace-stop-notes
1665 show trace-stop-notes
1666 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1667 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1668 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1669 started by someone else.
1670
1671 * New remote packets
1672
1673 QTEnable
1674
1675 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1676
1677 QTDisable
1678
1679 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1680
1681 QTNotes
1682
1683 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1684
1685 qTP
1686
1687 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1688
1689 qTMinFTPILen
1690
1691 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1692 be placed.
1693
1694 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1695 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1696
1697 * New targets
1698
1699 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1700
1701 * New Simulators
1702
1703 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1704
1705 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1706
1707 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1708
1709 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
1710
1711 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1712 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1713 matches the given regular expression.
1714
1715 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1716
1717 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1718 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1719
1720 * New command line options
1721
1722 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1723 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1724
1725 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1726 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1727
1728 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1729 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1730 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1731
1732 * GDB now understands thread names.
1733
1734 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1735 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1736
1737 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1738 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1739
1740 * OpenCL C
1741 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1742 has been integrated into GDB.
1743
1744 * Python scripting
1745
1746 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1747 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1748 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1749
1750 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1751 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1752 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1753 and allows for more dynamic content.
1754
1755 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1756 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1757 have an is_valid method.
1758
1759 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1760 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1761 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1762
1763 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1764
1765 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1766 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1767 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1768 that function like so:
1769
1770 result = some_value (10,20)
1771
1772 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1773 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1774 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1775
1776 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1777 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1778 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1779 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1780 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1781
1782 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1783 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1784
1785 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1786
1787 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1788 selected thread.
1789
1790 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1791 holds the thread's name.
1792
1793 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1794 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
1795 occurring in the process being debugged.
1796 The following events are currently supported:
1797 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1798 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1799 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1800
1801 * C++ Improvements:
1802
1803 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1804 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1805
1806 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1807
1808 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1809 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1810 was added to GCC 4.5.
1811
1812 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1813 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1814 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1815 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1816 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1817 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1818
1819 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1820 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1821 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1822 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1823 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1824
1825 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1826 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1827 execution to a label.
1828
1829 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1830 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1831 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1832 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1833
1834 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
1835 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
1836 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1837 of scope.
1838
1839 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1840
1841 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1842 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1843 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1844 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1845 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1846 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1847
1848 (gdb) info threads
1849 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1850
1851 While now you see this:
1852
1853 (gdb) info threads
1854 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1855
1856 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1857 dumps.
1858
1859 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1860 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1861 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1862 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1863
1864 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1865 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1866 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1867 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1868 section in the user manual for more details.
1869
1870 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1871
1872 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1873 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
1874
1875 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1876
1877 * New native configurations
1878
1879 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1880
1881 * New targets:
1882
1883 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1884
1885 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1886 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1887 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1888 in the GDB user manual.
1889
1890 * Guile support was removed.
1891
1892 * New features in the GNU simulator
1893
1894 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1895
1896 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1897
1898 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1899
1900 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1901
1902 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1903 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1904 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1905 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1906 was always disabled for such configurations.
1907
1908 * C++ Improvements:
1909
1910 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1911
1912 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1913 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1914 For example:
1915 namespace A
1916 {
1917 class B { };
1918 void foo (B) { }
1919 }
1920 ...
1921 A::B b
1922 foo(b)
1923 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1924 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1925 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1926
1927 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1928
1929 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1930 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1931 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1932 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1933 entry.
1934 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1935 mentioned flavors of operators.
1936
1937 ** static const class members
1938
1939 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1940 class definition has been fixed.
1941
1942 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1943
1944 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1945 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1946 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1947 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1948 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1949 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1950
1951 * Static tracepoints
1952
1953 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1954 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1955 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1956 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1957 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1958 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1959 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1960 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1961 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1962 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1963 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1964 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1965 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1966 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1967 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1968 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1969 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1970 the "New remote packets" section below.
1971
1972 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1973
1974 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1975 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1976 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1977 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1978
1979 * Observer mode
1980
1981 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1982 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1983 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1984 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1985 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1986 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1987 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1988
1989 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1990 current thread.
1991
1992 * New remote packets
1993
1994 qGetTIBAddr
1995
1996 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1997
1998 qRelocInsn
1999
2000 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
2001 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
2002 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
2003 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
2004 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
2005 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
2006
2007 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
2008
2009 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
2010
2011 qTSTMat
2012
2013 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
2014 program.
2015
2016 qXfer:statictrace:read
2017
2018 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
2019 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
2020 to gdb's qSupported query.
2021
2022 QAllow
2023
2024 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
2025
2026 QTDPsrc
2027
2028 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
2029 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
2030
2031 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
2032 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
2033 a directory.
2034
2035 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2036
2037 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
2038 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
2039 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
2040 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
2041
2042 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
2043 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
2044 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
2045 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
2046 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
2047 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
2048 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
2049
2050 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
2051 for static tracepoints support.
2052
2053 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
2054
2055 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
2056 it understands register description.
2057
2058 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
2059
2060 * X86 general purpose registers
2061
2062 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
2063 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
2064 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
2065 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
2066 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
2067
2068 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
2069 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
2070 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
2071 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
2072 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
2073 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
2074
2075 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
2076 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
2077 in the specified file.
2078
2079 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
2080 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
2081 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
2082 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
2083 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
2084 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
2085 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
2086 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
2087 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
2088 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
2089
2090 * New commands
2091
2092 eval template, expressions...
2093 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
2094 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
2095
2096 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
2097 show target-file-system-kind
2098 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
2099 names.
2100
2101 save breakpoints <filename>
2102 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
2103 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
2104 definitions, use the `source' command.
2105
2106 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
2107 is now deprecated.
2108
2109 info static-tracepoint-markers
2110 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
2111
2112 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
2113 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
2114 function, line, address, or marker ID.
2115
2116 set observer on|off
2117 show observer
2118 Enable and disable observer mode.
2119
2120 set may-write-registers on|off
2121 set may-write-memory on|off
2122 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
2123 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
2124 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
2125 set may-interrupt on|off
2126 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
2127 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
2128 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
2129 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
2130 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
2131 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
2132 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
2133
2134 set record memory-query on|off
2135 show record memory-query
2136 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
2137 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
2138
2139 * Changed commands
2140
2141 disassemble
2142 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
2143
2144 * Python scripting
2145
2146 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
2147 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
2148 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
2149 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
2150 GDB using Python' in the manual.
2151
2152 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
2153 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
2154 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
2155 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
2156
2157 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
2158 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
2159
2160 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
2161
2162 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
2163
2164 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
2165
2166 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
2167 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
2168 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
2169
2170 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
2171 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
2172 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
2173 regular breakpoints.
2174
2175 * New targets
2176
2177 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
2178
2179 * D language support.
2180 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
2181 language.
2182
2183 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
2184 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
2185 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
2186 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
2187 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
2188
2189 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
2190 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
2191 conditions of the form:
2192
2193 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
2194
2195 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
2196 interface mentioned above.
2197
2198 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
2199
2200 * C++ Improvements
2201
2202 ** Namespace Support
2203
2204 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
2205 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
2206 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
2207 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
2208 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
2209
2210 ** Bug Fixes
2211
2212 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
2213 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
2214 qualified name.
2215
2216 ** Cast Operators
2217
2218 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
2219 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
2220
2221 * New targets
2222
2223 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
2224 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2225
2226 * New Simulators
2227
2228 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
2229 Renesas RX rx
2230
2231 * Multi-program debugging.
2232
2233 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
2234 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
2235 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
2236 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
2237 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
2238 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
2239 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
2240 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
2241
2242 * New tracing features
2243
2244 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
2245
2246 ** Trace state variables
2247
2248 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
2249 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
2250 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
2251 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
2252 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
2253 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
2254 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
2255 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
2256 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
2257 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
2258
2259 ** Fast tracepoints
2260
2261 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
2262 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
2263 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
2264 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
2265 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
2266 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
2267 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
2268 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
2269 the regular trace command.
2270
2271 ** Disconnected tracing
2272
2273 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
2274 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
2275 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
2276 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
2277 connection is lost unexpectedly.
2278
2279 ** Trace files
2280
2281 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
2282 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
2283 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
2284 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
2285 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
2286 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
2287 <name>".
2288
2289 ** Circular trace buffer
2290
2291 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
2292 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
2293 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
2294 not be available for all target agents.
2295
2296 * Changed commands
2297
2298 disassemble
2299 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
2300 the arguments to be comma-separated.
2301
2302 info variables
2303 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
2304 which only declare a variable are not shown.
2305
2306 source
2307 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
2308 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
2309 support.
2310
2311 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
2312 "set script-extension" (see below).
2313
2314 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2315
2316 record save [<FILENAME>]
2317 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
2318 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
2319
2320 record restore <FILENAME>
2321 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
2322 earlier time, for replay debugging.
2323
2324 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
2325 Add a new inferior.
2326
2327 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
2328 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
2329 inferior has loaded.
2330
2331 remove-inferior ID
2332 Remove an inferior.
2333
2334 maint info program-spaces
2335 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
2336
2337 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
2338 show remote interrupt-sequence
2339 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
2340 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
2341 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
2342 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
2343 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
2344
2345 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
2346 show remote interrupt-on-connect
2347 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
2348 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
2349 Linux kernel.
2350
2351 set remotebreak [on | off]
2352 show remotebreak
2353 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
2354
2355 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
2356 Create or modify a trace state variable.
2357
2358 info tvariables
2359 List trace state variables and their values.
2360
2361 delete tvariable $NAME ...
2362 Delete one or more trace state variables.
2363
2364 teval EXPR, ...
2365 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
2366 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
2367
2368 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
2369 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
2370
2371 * New expression syntax
2372
2373 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
2374 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
2375
2376 * New options
2377
2378 set follow-exec-mode new|same
2379 show follow-exec-mode
2380 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
2381 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
2382 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
2383
2384 set default-collect EXPR, ...
2385 show default-collect
2386 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
2387 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
2388 such as registers or a critical global variable.
2389
2390 set disconnected-tracing
2391 show disconnected-tracing
2392 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
2393 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
2394 upon disconnection.
2395
2396 set circular-trace-buffer
2397 show circular-trace-buffer
2398 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
2399 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
2400 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
2401 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
2402
2403 set script-extension off|soft|strict
2404 show script-extension
2405 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
2406 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
2407 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
2408 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
2409 evaluation failed.
2410 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
2411
2412 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
2413 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
2414 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
2415 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
2416 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
2417 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
2418 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
2419 is on.
2420
2421 * Python API Improvements
2422
2423 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
2424 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
2425 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
2426
2427 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
2428 `is_base_class' attribute.
2429
2430 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
2431
2432 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
2433 evaluate an expression.
2434
2435 * New remote packets
2436
2437 QTDV
2438 Define a trace state variable.
2439
2440 qTV
2441 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
2442
2443 QTDisconnected
2444 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
2445
2446 QTBuffer:circular
2447 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
2448
2449 qTfP, qTsP
2450 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
2451
2452 * Bug fixes
2453
2454 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
2455
2456 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
2457 much more reliable. In particular:
2458 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
2459 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
2460 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
2461 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
2462 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
2463 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
2464 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
2465 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
2466 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
2467 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
2468 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
2469 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
2470 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
2471 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
2472 non-threaded programs.
2473
2474 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
2475 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
2476 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
2477 executable program.
2478
2479 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
2480
2481 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
2482 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
2483 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
2484 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
2485 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
2486
2487 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
2488 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
2489 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
2490 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
2491 for tracepoint actions.
2492
2493 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
2494 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
2495 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
2496
2497 * Process record and replay
2498
2499 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
2500 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
2501 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
2502 execute commands.
2503
2504 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
2505 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
2506 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
2507 reverse execution.
2508
2509 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
2510 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
2511 2.6.28 or later.
2512
2513 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
2514 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
2515 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
2516 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
2517 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
2518 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2519 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2520 the installation instructions for more information.
2521
2522 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2523 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2524 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2525 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
2526
2527 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
2528 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2529
2530 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2531 now complete on file names.
2532
2533 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2534 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2535 For instance, consider:
2536
2537 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2538 # struct example variable;
2539 (gdb) p variable.
2540
2541 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2542 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2543
2544 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2545 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2546
2547 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2548 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
2549 macros.
2550
2551 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
2552 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
2553 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
2554
2555 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
2556 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
2557 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
2558 and simulator targets may also provide them.
2559
2560 * New remote packets
2561
2562 qSearch:memory:
2563 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2564
2565 QStartNoAckMode
2566 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
2567 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
2568 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
2569
2570 vKill
2571 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
2572 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
2573
2574 qXfer:osdata:read
2575 Obtains additional operating system information
2576
2577 qXfer:siginfo:read
2578 qXfer:siginfo:write
2579 Read or write additional signal information.
2580
2581 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
2582
2583 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
2584 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
2585 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
2586
2587 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
2588 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
2589
2590 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
2591 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
2592 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
2593
2594 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
2595 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
2596
2597 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
2598
2599 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
2600
2601 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
2602 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
2603
2604 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
2605 list of section offsets.
2606
2607 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
2608 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
2609 have also been fixed.
2610
2611 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
2612 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
2613 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
2614
2615 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
2616 example, given:
2617
2618 template<typename T> class C { };
2619 C<char const *> c;
2620
2621 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
2622
2623 ptype C<char const *>
2624 ptype C<char const*>
2625 ptype C<const char *>
2626 ptype C<const char*>
2627
2628 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
2629
2630 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
2631 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2632
2633 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2634 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2635 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2636
2637 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2638 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2639
2640 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2641 gdbserver.
2642
2643 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2644 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2645
2646 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2647 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2648 as appropriate.
2649
2650 * Python scripting
2651
2652 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2653 available is determined at configure time.
2654
2655 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2656
2657 * Ada tasking support
2658
2659 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2660 been introduced:
2661
2662 info tasks
2663 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2664 info task N
2665 Print detailed information about task number N.
2666 task
2667 Print the task number of the current task.
2668 task N
2669 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2670
2671 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2672 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2673
2674 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2675
2676 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2677 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2678 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2679 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2680 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2681 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2682 below.
2683
2684 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2685 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2686 information.
2687
2688 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2689 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2690 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2691 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2692 more information.
2693
2694 * Multi-architecture debugging.
2695
2696 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2697 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2698 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2699 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2700 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2701
2702 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2703 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2704 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2705 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2706 --enable-targets configure option.
2707
2708 * Non-stop mode debugging.
2709
2710 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2711 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2712 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2713 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2714 section in the user manual for more information.
2715
2716 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2717 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2718 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2719 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2720 extensions on linux targets.
2721
2722 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2723
2724 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2725 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2726 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2727 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2728 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2729 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2730 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2731 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2732 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2733
2734 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2735 val1 [, val2, ...]
2736 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2737
2738 maint set python print-stack
2739 maint show python print-stack
2740 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2741
2742 python [CODE]
2743 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2744
2745 macro define
2746 macro list
2747 macro undef
2748 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2749 interactively.
2750
2751 info os processes
2752 Show operating system information about processes.
2753
2754 info inferiors
2755 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2756
2757 inferior NUM
2758 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2759
2760 detach inferior NUM
2761 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2762
2763 kill inferior NUM
2764 Kill inferior number NUM.
2765
2766 * New options
2767
2768 set spu stop-on-load
2769 show spu stop-on-load
2770 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2771
2772 set spu auto-flush-cache
2773 show spu auto-flush-cache
2774 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2775 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2776
2777 set sh calling-convention
2778 show sh calling-convention
2779 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2780
2781 set debug timestamp
2782 show debug timestamp
2783 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2784
2785 set disassemble-next-line
2786 show disassemble-next-line
2787 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2788 the debuggee stops.
2789
2790 set remote noack-packet
2791 show remote noack-packet
2792 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2793 under "New remote packets."
2794
2795 set remote query-attached-packet
2796 show remote query-attached-packet
2797 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2798
2799 set remote read-siginfo-object
2800 show remote read-siginfo-object
2801 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2802 packet.
2803
2804 set remote write-siginfo-object
2805 show remote write-siginfo-object
2806 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2807 packet.
2808
2809 set remote reverse-continue
2810 show remote reverse-continue
2811 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2812
2813 set remote reverse-step
2814 show remote reverse-step
2815 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2816
2817 set displaced-stepping
2818 show displaced-stepping
2819 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2820 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2821 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2822
2823 set debug displaced
2824 show debug displaced
2825 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2826
2827 maint set internal-error
2828 maint show internal-error
2829 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2830
2831 maint set internal-warning
2832 maint show internal-warning
2833 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
2834
2835 set exec-wrapper
2836 show exec-wrapper
2837 unset exec-wrapper
2838 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2839
2840 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2841 show multiple-symbols
2842 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2843 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2844 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2845
2846 set breakpoint always-inserted
2847 show breakpoint always-inserted
2848 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2849 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2850 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2851
2852 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2853 show arm fallback-mode
2854 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2855 show arm force-mode
2856 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2857 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2858 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2859 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2860
2861 set disable-randomization
2862 show disable-randomization
2863 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2864 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2865 multiple debugging sessions.
2866
2867 set non-stop
2868 show non-stop
2869 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2870 a breakpoint.
2871
2872 set target-async
2873 show target-async
2874 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2875 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2876 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2877 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2878
2879 set target-wide-charset
2880 show target-wide-charset
2881 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2882 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2883
2884 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2885 show tcp auto-retry
2886 set tcp connect-timeout
2887 show tcp connect-timeout
2888 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2889 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2890 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2891
2892 set libthread-db-search-path
2893 show libthread-db-search-path
2894 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2895 libthread_db.
2896
2897 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2898 show schedule-multiple
2899 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2900 the current process.
2901
2902 set stack-cache
2903 show stack-cache
2904 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2905 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2906 affecting correctness.
2907
2908 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2909 show interactive-mode
2910 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2911 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2912 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2913 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2914 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2915
2916 * Removed commands
2917
2918 info forks
2919 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2920 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2921 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2922 command.
2923
2924 fork NUM
2925 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2926 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2927 alias for the `fork' command.
2928
2929 process PID
2930 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2931 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2932 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2933
2934 delete fork NUM
2935 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2936 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2937 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2938 fork' command.
2939
2940 detach fork NUM
2941 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2942 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2943 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2944 fork' command.
2945
2946 * New native configurations
2947
2948 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2949
2950 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2951
2952 * New targets
2953
2954 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2955 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2956 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2957 S+core 3 score-*-*
2958
2959 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2960 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2961
2962 * Removed commands
2963
2964 catch load
2965 catch unload
2966 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2967
2968 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2969
2970 * New native configurations
2971
2972 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2973 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2974
2975 * New targets
2976
2977 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2978 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2979
2980 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2981
2982 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2983 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2984 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2985 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2986
2987 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2988 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2989
2990 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2991 is resolved.
2992
2993 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2994 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2995 and in inlined functions.
2996
2997 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2998 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2999 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
3000
3001 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
3002
3003 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
3004 registers on PowerPC targets.
3005
3006 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
3007 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
3008
3009 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
3010 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
3011
3012 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
3013 extended-remote mode.
3014
3015 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
3016 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
3017 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
3018 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
3019
3020 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
3021 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
3022 target architectures.
3023
3024 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
3025 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
3026 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
3027 stored in two consecutive float registers.
3028
3029 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
3030 breakpoints now.
3031
3032 * Improved support for debugging Ada
3033 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
3034 include:
3035 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
3036 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
3037 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
3038 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
3039 of an assignment
3040 - Improved command completion in Ada
3041 - Several bug fixes
3042
3043 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
3044 process.
3045
3046 * New commands
3047
3048 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
3049 show print frame-arguments
3050 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
3051 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
3052
3053 remote put
3054 remote get
3055 remote delete
3056 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
3057
3058 * New MI commands
3059
3060 -target-file-put
3061 -target-file-get
3062 -target-file-delete
3063 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
3064
3065 * New remote packets
3066
3067 vFile:open:
3068 vFile:close:
3069 vFile:pread:
3070 vFile:pwrite:
3071 vFile:unlink:
3072 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
3073
3074 vAttach
3075 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
3076 mode.
3077
3078 vRun
3079 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
3080
3081 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
3082
3083 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
3084 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
3085 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
3086
3087 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
3088 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
3089 -Bsymbolic linker option.
3090
3091 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
3092 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
3093 is not supported.
3094
3095 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
3096 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
3097
3098 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
3099 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
3100
3101 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
3102
3103 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
3104 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
3105 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
3106
3107 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
3108 automatically displayed as character or string data.
3109
3110 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
3111 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
3112 as strings.
3113
3114 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
3115 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
3116 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
3117
3118 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
3119 iWMMXt coprocessor.
3120
3121 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
3122 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
3123 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
3124
3125 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
3126
3127 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
3128
3129 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
3130 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
3131 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
3132
3133 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
3134 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
3135
3136 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
3137 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
3138 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
3139 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
3140 Windows and SymbianOS).
3141
3142 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
3143 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
3144
3145 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
3146 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
3147
3148 * New commands
3149
3150 set remoteflow
3151 show remoteflow
3152 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
3153 when debugging using remote targets.
3154
3155 set mem inaccessible-by-default
3156 show mem inaccessible-by-default
3157 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
3158 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
3159 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
3160 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
3161 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
3162
3163 set breakpoint auto-hw
3164 show breakpoint auto-hw
3165 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
3166 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
3167 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
3168 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
3169 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
3170 including "next" and "finish".
3171
3172 catch exception
3173 catch exception unhandled
3174 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
3175
3176 catch assert
3177 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
3178
3179 set sysroot
3180 show sysroot
3181 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
3182 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
3183 an alias to "set sysroot".
3184
3185 info spu
3186 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
3187 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
3188 architecture.
3189
3190 * New native configurations
3191
3192 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
3193
3194 set tdesc filename
3195 unset tdesc filename
3196 show tdesc filename
3197 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
3198 not query the target for its built-in description.
3199
3200 * New targets
3201
3202 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
3203 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
3204 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
3205
3206 * New remote packets
3207
3208 QPassSignals:
3209 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
3210 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
3211
3212 qXfer:features:read:
3213 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
3214 features.
3215
3216 qXfer:spu:read:
3217 qXfer:spu:write:
3218 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
3219 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
3220
3221 qXfer:libraries:read:
3222 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
3223 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
3224 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
3225 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
3226
3227 * Removed targets
3228
3229 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
3230
3231 alpha*-*-osf1*
3232 alpha*-*-osf2*
3233 d10v-*-*
3234 hppa*-*-hiux*
3235 i[34567]86-ncr-*
3236 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
3237 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
3238 i[34567]86-*-netware*
3239 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
3240 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
3241 i[34567]86-*-sco*
3242 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
3243 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
3244 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
3245 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
3246 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
3247 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
3248 i[34567]86-*-isc*
3249 m68*-cisco*-*
3250 m68*-tandem-*
3251 mips*-*-pe
3252 rs6000-*-lynxos*
3253 sh*-*-pe
3254
3255 * Other removed features
3256
3257 target abug
3258 target cpu32bug
3259 target est
3260 target rom68k
3261
3262 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
3263
3264 target hms
3265 target e7000
3266 target sh3
3267 target sh3e
3268
3269 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
3270 H8/300.
3271
3272 target ocd
3273
3274 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
3275 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
3276 interfaces.
3277
3278 DWARF 1 support
3279
3280 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
3281 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
3282
3283 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
3284
3285 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
3286 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
3287 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
3288 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
3289
3290 MIPS ".pdr" sections
3291
3292 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
3293 in debugging information.
3294
3295 Scheme support
3296
3297 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
3298 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
3299
3300 set mips stack-arg-size
3301 set mips saved-gpreg-size
3302
3303 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
3304
3305 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
3306
3307 * New targets
3308
3309 Xtensa xtensa-elf
3310 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
3311
3312 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
3313 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
3314 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
3315
3316 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
3317 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
3318 supported.
3319
3320 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
3321 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
3322
3323 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
3324 stub provides the required support.
3325
3326 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
3327 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
3328
3329 * New commands
3330
3331 set substitute-path
3332 unset substitute-path
3333 show substitute-path
3334 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
3335 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
3336 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
3337 between compilation and debugging.
3338
3339 set trace-commands
3340 show trace-commands
3341 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
3342 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
3343 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
3344
3345 * REMOVED features
3346
3347 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
3348
3349 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
3350 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
3351
3352 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
3353
3354 * New remote packets
3355
3356 qSupported:
3357 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
3358 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
3359 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
3360 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
3361 target.
3362
3363 qXfer:auxv:read:
3364 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
3365 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
3366
3367 qXfer:memory-map:read:
3368 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
3369 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
3370
3371 vFlashErase:
3372 vFlashWrite:
3373 vFlashDone:
3374 Erase and program a flash memory device.
3375
3376 * Removed remote packets
3377
3378 qPart:auxv:read:
3379 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
3380 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
3381
3382 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
3383
3384 * New targets
3385
3386 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
3387
3388 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3389
3390 * New commands
3391
3392 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
3393 only if it doesn't already have a value.
3394
3395 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
3396
3397 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
3398
3399 restart <n> Return the program state to a
3400 previously saved state.
3401
3402 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
3403
3404 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
3405
3406 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
3407 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
3408
3409 info forks List forks of the user program that
3410 are available to be debugged.
3411
3412 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
3413 forks of the user program that are
3414 available to be debugged.
3415
3416 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3417 that are available to be debugged (and
3418 kill the forked process).
3419
3420 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3421 that are available to be debugged (and
3422 allow the process to continue).
3423
3424 * New architecture
3425
3426 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
3427
3428 * Improved Windows host support
3429
3430 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
3431 native console support, and remote communications using either
3432 network sockets or serial ports.
3433
3434 * Improved Modula-2 language support
3435
3436 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
3437 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
3438 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
3439 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
3440 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
3441 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
3442
3443 * REMOVED features
3444
3445 The ARM rdi-share module.
3446
3447 The Netware NLM debug server.
3448
3449 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
3450
3451 * New native configurations
3452
3453 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
3454 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
3455
3456 * New targets
3457
3458 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3459
3460 * New command line options
3461
3462 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
3463 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
3464 the child (debugged) program exited with.
3465 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
3466 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
3467 specified multiple times and in conjunction
3468 with the --command (-x) option.
3469
3470 * Deprecated commands removed
3471
3472 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
3473 removed:
3474
3475 Command Replacement
3476 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
3477 othernames set arm disassembler
3478 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
3479 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
3480 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
3481 regs info registers
3482
3483 * New BSD user-level threads support
3484
3485 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
3486 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
3487 configurations are:
3488
3489 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3490 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
3491 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
3492
3493 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
3494 are not yet supported.
3495
3496 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
3497 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
3498
3499 * REMOVED configurations and files
3500
3501 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
3502 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3503 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
3504
3505 * New "set print array-indexes" command
3506
3507 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
3508 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
3509 behavior.
3510
3511 * VAX floating point support
3512
3513 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
3514
3515 * User-defined command support
3516
3517 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
3518 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3519 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3520
3521 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3522
3523 * New command line option
3524
3525 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
3526 debugging.
3527
3528 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3529
3530 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3531 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3532 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3533 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3534 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
3535
3536 * Internationalization
3537
3538 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3539 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3540 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3541
3542 * Ada
3543
3544 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3545 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3546 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3547
3548 * New native configurations
3549
3550 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
3551
3552 * Remote 'p' packet
3553
3554 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
3555 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
3556
3557 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
3558
3559 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3560 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
3561 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
3562 i386 application).
3563
3564 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
3565 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
3566 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
3567 configurations:
3568
3569 hppa-*-hpux
3570 ia64-*-aix
3571 mips-*-irix*
3572 *-*-lynx
3573 mips-*-linux-gnu
3574 sds protocol
3575 xdr protocol
3576 powerpc bdm protocol
3577
3578 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3579 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
3580
3581 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3582
3583 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3584 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3585 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3586 permanently REMOVED.
3587
3588 h8300-*-*
3589 mcore-*-*
3590 mn10300-*-*
3591 ns32k-*-*
3592 sh64-*-*
3593 v850-*-*
3594
3595 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
3596
3597 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
3598
3599 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
3600 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
3601 been fixed.
3602
3603 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
3604
3605 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
3606 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
3607 IRIX long double values).
3608
3609 * VAX and "next"
3610
3611 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
3612 command. This problem has been fixed.
3613
3614 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
3615
3616 * Fix for ``many threads''
3617
3618 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
3619 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
3620 error message:
3621
3622 ptrace: No such process.
3623 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
3624
3625 This problem has been fixed.
3626
3627 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
3628
3629 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
3630 GDB to dump core).
3631
3632 * New ``start'' command.
3633
3634 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3635
3636 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3637
3638 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3639 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3640 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3641
3642 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3643 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3644 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3645 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3646 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3647 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3648 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3649 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3650 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3651
3652 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
3653
3654 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3655 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3656 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3657 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3658 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3659
3660 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3661 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3662 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3663
3664 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3665
3666 * New native configurations
3667
3668 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
3669 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
3670 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3671 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
3672 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
3673 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
3674 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
3675
3676 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3677
3678 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3679 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3680 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3681 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3682 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3683 work, was also included.
3684
3685 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3686 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3687
3688 h8300-*-*
3689 mcore-*-*
3690 mn10300-*-*
3691 ns32k-*-*
3692 sh64-*-*
3693 v850-*-*
3694 xstormy16-*-*
3695
3696 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3697 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3698
3699 * REMOVED configurations and files
3700
3701 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3702 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3703 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3704 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3705 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3706 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3707 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3708 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3709 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3710 sonymips mips-sony-*
3711 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3712
3713 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3714
3715 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3716
3717 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3718 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3719 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3720 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3721 with GDB".
3722
3723 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3724
3725 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3726 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3727 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3728 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3729 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3730 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3731 are created.
3732
3733 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3734
3735 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
3736
3737 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3738 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3739 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3740
3741 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3742
3743 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3744 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3745
3746 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3747
3748 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3749 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3750 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3751
3752 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3753
3754 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3755 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3756
3757 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3758
3759 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3760 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3761 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3762
3763 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3764
3765 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3766 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3767 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3768
3769 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
3770
3771 * Removed --with-mmalloc
3772
3773 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3774 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3775
3776 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
3777
3778 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3779 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3780 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3781 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3782
3783 * Revised SPARC target
3784
3785 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3786 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
3787 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3788 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3789 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
3790
3791 * New C++ demangler
3792
3793 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3794 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3795 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3796 programs.
3797
3798 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3799
3800 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3801 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3802 encountered these.
3803
3804 * C++ nested types and namespaces
3805
3806 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3807 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3808 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3809 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3810 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3811 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3812 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3813 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3814 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3815
3816 * New native configurations
3817
3818 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
3819 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3820 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
3821 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3822 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
3823
3824 * New debugging protocols
3825
3826 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3827
3828 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3829
3830 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3831 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3832 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3833
3834 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3835
3836 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3837 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3838 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3839 permanently REMOVED.
3840
3841 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3842 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3843 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3844 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3845 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3846 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3847 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3848 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3849 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3850 sonymips mips-sony-*
3851 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3852
3853 * REMOVED configurations and files
3854
3855 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3856 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3857 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3858 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3859 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3860 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3861 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3862 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3863 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3864 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
3865 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3866 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3867 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3868 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3869 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
3870 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3871 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3872
3873 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3874
3875 * Objective-C
3876
3877 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3878 integrated into GDB.
3879
3880 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3881
3882 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3883 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3884 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3885 backtraces.
3886
3887 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3888 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3889 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3890
3891 * Hosted file I/O.
3892
3893 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3894 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3895 remote protocol documentation for details.
3896
3897 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3898
3899 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3900 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3901 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3902 ppc32 on ppc64).
3903
3904 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3905
3906 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3907 per-thread variables.
3908
3909 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3910
3911 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3912 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3913
3914 * Separate debug info.
3915
3916 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3917 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3918 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3919 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3920 and optional debug files.
3921
3922 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3923
3924 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3925 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3926 debugger.
3927
3928 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3929 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3930
3931 * Java
3932
3933 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3934 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3935 considered "useable".
3936
3937 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3938
3939 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3940 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3941 kernel.
3942
3943 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3944
3945 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3946 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3947
3948 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3949
3950 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3951 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3952 command.
3953
3954 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3955
3956 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3957 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3958
3959 * Profiling support
3960
3961 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3962 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3963 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3964 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3965 data, for more informative profiling results.
3966
3967 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3968
3969 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3970 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3971 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3972
3973 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3974 removed.
3975
3976 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3977 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3978 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3979 in a subsequent -var-update.
3980
3981 * New native configurations.
3982
3983 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3984
3985 * Multi-arched targets.
3986
3987 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3988 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3989
3990 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3991
3992 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3993 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3994 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3995 permanently REMOVED.
3996
3997 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3998 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3999 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4000 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
4001 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4002 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
4003 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
4004 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
4005 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
4006 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
4007 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4008 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4009
4010 * REMOVED configurations and files
4011
4012 V850EA ISA
4013 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4014 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
4015 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
4016 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
4017 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
4018 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
4019 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
4020 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4021 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4022 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4023 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4024 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4025 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4026
4027 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
4028
4029 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
4030 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
4031 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
4032 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
4033 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
4034
4035 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
4036
4037 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
4038
4039 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
4040 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
4041 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
4042 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
4043 shared libs like mad''.
4044
4045 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
4046
4047 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
4048 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
4049 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
4050 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
4051
4052 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
4053
4054 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
4055 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
4056 they expand.
4057
4058 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
4059 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
4060
4061 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
4062 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
4063
4064 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
4065 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
4066 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
4067 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
4068
4069 * Multi-arched targets.
4070
4071 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
4072 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
4073 NEC V850 v850-*-*
4074 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
4075 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
4076 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4077
4078 * New targets.
4079
4080 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
4081
4082
4083 * New native configurations
4084
4085 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
4086 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
4087 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
4088 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
4089
4090 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4091
4092 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4093 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4094 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4095 permanently REMOVED.
4096
4097 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4098 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4099 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
4100 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4101 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4102 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4103 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
4104 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
4105 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
4106 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
4107 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
4108 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4109 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4110
4111 * OBSOLETE languages
4112
4113 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
4114
4115 * REMOVED configurations and files
4116
4117 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4118 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4119 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4120 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4121 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4122
4123 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
4124
4125 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
4126
4127 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
4128 commands. The default is 1024.
4129
4130 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
4131
4132 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
4133
4134 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
4135
4136 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
4137 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
4138 from a file into memory (restore).
4139
4140 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
4141
4142 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
4143 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
4144 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
4145
4146 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
4147
4148 * New targets.
4149
4150 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
4151
4152 * Bug fixes
4153
4154 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
4155 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
4156 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
4157
4158 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
4159 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
4160 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
4161
4162 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
4163 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
4164 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
4165
4166 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
4167 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
4168 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
4169
4170 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
4171
4172 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
4173
4174 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
4175 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
4176 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
4177 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
4178 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
4179 (notably embedded) targets.
4180
4181 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
4182
4183 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
4184 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
4185 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
4186 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
4187
4188 * New command line option
4189
4190 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
4191
4192 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4193
4194 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
4195 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
4196 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
4197 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
4198 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
4199 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
4200 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
4201 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
4202 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
4203 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
4204
4205 * Changes in ARM configurations.
4206
4207 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
4208 configuration is fully multi-arch.
4209
4210 * New native configurations
4211
4212 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
4213 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
4214 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
4215 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
4216
4217 * New targets
4218
4219 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
4220
4221 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4222
4223 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4224 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4225 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4226 permanently REMOVED.
4227
4228 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4229 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4230 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4231 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4232 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4233
4234 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
4235
4236 * REMOVED configurations and files
4237
4238 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4239 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4240 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4241 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4242 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
4243 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
4244 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4245 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
4246 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
4247 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
4248 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4249 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
4250 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
4251
4252 * Changes to command line processing
4253
4254 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
4255 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
4256
4257 * Changes to key bindings
4258
4259 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
4260
4261 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
4262
4263 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
4264
4265 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
4266 corrupted.
4267
4268 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
4269
4270 Numerous documentation fixes.
4271
4272 Numerous testsuite fixes.
4273
4274 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
4275
4276 * New native configurations
4277
4278 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
4279 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
4280 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
4281 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4282 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
4283 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
4284
4285 * New targets
4286
4287 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
4288 CRIS cris-axis
4289 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
4290
4291 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4292
4293 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
4294 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
4295 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4296 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
4297 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4298 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4299 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
4300 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4301 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4302 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
4303 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
4304 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4305 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
4306 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
4307
4308 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
4309 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
4310
4311 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4312 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4313 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4314 permanently REMOVED.
4315
4316 * REMOVED configurations and files
4317
4318 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4319 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4320 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
4321 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4322 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
4323 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
4324
4325 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
4326
4327 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
4328 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
4329 present.
4330
4331 * Other news:
4332
4333 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
4334
4335 * The MI enabled by default.
4336
4337 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
4338 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
4339 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
4340 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
4341 which is now deprecated.
4342
4343 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
4344
4345 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
4346 main features are supported:
4347
4348 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
4349
4350 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
4351 extension;
4352
4353 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
4354
4355 - a Pascal expression parser.
4356
4357 However, some important features are not yet supported.
4358
4359 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
4360
4361 - there are some problems with boolean types;
4362
4363 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
4364 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
4365
4366 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
4367
4368 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
4369
4370 * Changes in completion.
4371
4372 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
4373 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
4374 users expect at the shell prompt.
4375
4376 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
4377 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
4378 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
4379 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
4380 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
4381 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
4382 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
4383
4384 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
4385
4386 * New platform-independent commands:
4387
4388 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
4389 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
4390 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
4391
4392 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
4393
4394 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
4395 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
4396 many threads as your system allows you to have.
4397
4398 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
4399
4400 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
4401 multi-threaded programs though.
4402
4403 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
4404
4405 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
4406
4407 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
4408 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
4409 supported.)
4410
4411 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
4412
4413 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
4414 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
4415 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
4416 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
4417 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
4418 registers.
4419
4420 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
4421 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
4422 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
4423
4424 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
4425
4426 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
4427 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
4428
4429 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
4430 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
4431 IDT.
4432
4433 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
4434 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
4435 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
4436 a given linear address.
4437
4438 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
4439 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
4440 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
4441
4442 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
4443
4444 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
4445
4446 * Changes in documentation.
4447
4448 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
4449 Documentation License.
4450
4451 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4452 manual.
4453
4454 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
4455
4456 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4457 manual.
4458
4459 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
4460 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
4461 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
4462
4463 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
4464
4465 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
4466 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
4467 contents of this file.
4468
4469 * gdba.el deleted
4470
4471 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
4472
4473 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
4474
4475 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
4476
4477 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
4478 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
4479 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
4480 greater level of detail.
4481
4482 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
4483
4484 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
4485 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
4486 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
4487 written.
4488
4489 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
4490
4491 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
4492 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
4493 machines ``out of the box''.
4494
4495 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
4496 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
4497 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
4498 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
4499 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
4500
4501 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
4502 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
4503 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
4504 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
4505 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
4506
4507 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
4508 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
4509 also works.
4510
4511 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
4512 GDB.
4513
4514 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
4515 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
4516 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
4517 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
4518
4519 * New native configurations
4520
4521 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
4522 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4523
4524 * New targets
4525
4526 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
4527 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
4528 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
4529 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4530
4531 * OBSOLETE configurations
4532
4533 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4534 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4535 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
4536 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4537 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
4538
4539 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4540 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4541 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4542 be permanently REMOVED.
4543
4544 * Gould support removed
4545
4546 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4547
4548 * New features for SVR4
4549
4550 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
4551 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
4552 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
4553
4554 * Many C++ enhancements
4555
4556 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
4557 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
4558
4559 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
4560
4561 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
4562 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
4563 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
4564 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
4565
4566 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
4567 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
4568
4569 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
4570
4571 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
4572 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
4573 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
4574
4575 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
4576 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4577
4578 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
4579
4580 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
4581 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
4582 include ``set remote P-packet''.
4583
4584 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
4585
4586 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
4587 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
4588 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
4589
4590 * ``apropos'' command added.
4591
4592 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
4593 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
4594 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
4595
4596 * New MI interface
4597
4598 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
4599 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
4600 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
4601 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
4602 enabled by configuring with:
4603
4604 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
4605
4606 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
4607
4608 * New native configurations
4609
4610 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
4611 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
4612 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
4613
4614 * New targets
4615
4616 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4617 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
4618 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4619
4620 * OBSOLETE configurations
4621
4622 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
4623
4624 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4625 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4626 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4627 be permanently REMOVED.
4628
4629 * ANSI/ISO C
4630
4631 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
4632 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
4633 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4634 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4635 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4636 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4637 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4638 already.
4639
4640 * Readline 2.2
4641
4642 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4643
4644 * set extension-language
4645
4646 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4647 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4648 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4649 set extension-language .c c++
4650 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4651 and their associated languages.
4652
4653 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4654
4655 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4656 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4657 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4658
4659 set processor NAME
4660
4661 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4662 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4663
4664 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4665 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4666 403 IBM PowerPC 403
4667 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4668 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4669 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4670 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4671 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4672 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4673 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4674 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4675
4676 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4677 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4678 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4679 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4680
4681 * HP-UX support
4682
4683 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4684 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4685 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4686 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4687 for xdb and dbx commands.
4688
4689 * Catchpoints
4690
4691 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4692 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4693 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4694
4695 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4696 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4697 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4698
4699 * Debugging across forks
4700
4701 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4702 in the inferior.
4703
4704 * TUI
4705
4706 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4707 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4708 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4709
4710 * GDB remote protocol additions
4711
4712 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4713 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4714 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4715 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4716
4717 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4718 full 64-bit address. The command
4719
4720 set remoteaddresssize 32
4721
4722 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4723 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4724 will be discarded.
4725
4726 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4727 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4728
4729 maint packet heythere
4730
4731 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4732 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4733 time.
4734
4735 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4736 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4737 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4738
4739 * Tracing can collect general expressions
4740
4741 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4742 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4743 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4744
4745 * mask-address variable for Mips
4746
4747 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4748 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4749 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4750
4751 * Higher serial baud rates
4752
4753 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4754 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4755 to achieve all of these rates.)
4756
4757 * i960 simulator
4758
4759 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4760 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4761
4762
4763 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4764
4765 * New native configurations
4766
4767 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4768 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4769 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4770 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4771 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4772 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4773 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4774
4775 * New targets
4776
4777 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4778 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4779 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4780 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4781 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4782 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4783 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4784 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4785 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4786 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4787 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4788
4789 * New debugging protocols
4790
4791 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4792 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4793 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4794 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4795 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4796 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4797
4798 * DWARF 2
4799
4800 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4801 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4802 information.
4803
4804 * Java frontend
4805
4806 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4807 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4808
4809 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4810
4811 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4812 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4813 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4814
4815 * Live range splitting
4816
4817 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4818 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4819 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4820
4821 * Hurd support
4822
4823 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4824 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4825
4826 * ARM Thumb support
4827
4828 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4829 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4830 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4831 accordingly.
4832
4833 * MIPS16 support
4834
4835 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4836 instruction set.
4837
4838 * Overlay support
4839
4840 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4841 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4842 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4843 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4844 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4845 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4846
4847 * info symbol
4848
4849 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4850 the symbol at the specified address.
4851
4852 * Trace support
4853
4854 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4855 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4856 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4857 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4858 file tracepoint.c for more details.
4859
4860 * MIPS simulator
4861
4862 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4863 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4864 of most MIPS variants.
4865
4866 * Sparc simulator
4867
4868 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4869 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4870 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4871
4872 * set architecture
4873
4874 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4875 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4876 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4877 the possible architectures.
4878
4879 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4880
4881 * New native configurations
4882
4883 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4884 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4885 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4886 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4887 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4888 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4889
4890 * New targets
4891
4892 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4893 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4894 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4895 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4896 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4897 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4898 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4899
4900 * PowerPC simulator
4901
4902 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4903 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4904 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4905 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4906 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4907
4908 * Solaris 2.5
4909
4910 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4911
4912 * Windows 95/NT native
4913
4914 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4915 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4916 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4917 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4918 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4919
4920 * dont-repeat command
4921
4922 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4923 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4924 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4925 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4926
4927 * Send break instead of ^C
4928
4929 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4930 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4931 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4932
4933 * Remote protocol timeout
4934
4935 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4936 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4937 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4938
4939 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4940
4941 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4942 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4943 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4944 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4945 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4946
4947 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4948 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4949 automatically on hpux10.
4950
4951 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4952
4953 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4954
4955 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4956
4957 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4958 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4959 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4960 every character. The default value is 1050.
4961
4962 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4963
4964 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4965 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4966 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4967 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4968 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4969 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4970
4971 * Speedups for remote debugging
4972
4973 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4974 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4975 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4976
4977 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4978
4979 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4980 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4981
4982 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4983
4984 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4985
4986 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4987 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4988
4989 * Remote targets use caching
4990
4991 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4992 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4993 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4994 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4995 off' turns the the data cache off.
4996
4997 * Remote targets may have threads
4998
4999 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
5000 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
5001 gdb/remote.c for details.
5002
5003 * NetROM support
5004
5005 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
5006 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
5007 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
5008 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
5009 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
5010 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
5011 sequence is something like
5012
5013 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
5014 load <prog>
5015 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
5016
5017 * Macintosh host
5018
5019 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
5020 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
5021 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
5022 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
5023 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
5024 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
5025 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
5026 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
5027
5028 * Autoconf
5029
5030 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
5031 but does simplify configuration and building.
5032
5033 * hpux10
5034
5035 GDB now supports hpux10.
5036
5037 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
5038
5039 * New native configurations
5040
5041 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
5042 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
5043 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
5044 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
5045
5046 * New targets
5047
5048 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5049 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
5050 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
5051 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
5052 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5053
5054 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
5055
5056 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
5057 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
5058 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
5059 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
5060 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
5061
5062 * Arguments to user-defined commands
5063
5064 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
5065 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
5066 trivial example:
5067 define adder
5068 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
5069
5070 To execute the command use:
5071 adder 1 2 3
5072
5073 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
5074 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
5075 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
5076
5077 * New `if' and `while' commands
5078
5079 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
5080 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
5081 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
5082 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
5083 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
5084 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
5085 if the expression is zero.
5086
5087 * Fortran source language mode
5088
5089 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
5090 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
5091 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
5092 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
5093 Fortran compilers.
5094
5095 * Better HPUX support
5096
5097 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
5098 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
5099 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
5100 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
5101 that behavior do the following before running the program:
5102
5103 adb -w a.out
5104 __dld_flags?W 0x5
5105 control-d
5106
5107 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
5108 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
5109
5110 adb -w a.out
5111 __dld_flags?W 0x4
5112 control-d
5113
5114 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
5115 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
5116 external linkage.
5117
5118 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
5119 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
5120
5121 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
5122
5123 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
5124 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
5125 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
5126 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
5127 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
5128 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
5129
5130 * New DOS host serial code
5131
5132 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
5133 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
5134 a PC's serial port.
5135
5136 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
5137
5138 * New "complete" command
5139
5140 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
5141 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
5142
5143 * Trailing space optional in prompt
5144
5145 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
5146 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
5147
5148 * Breakpoint hit counts
5149
5150 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
5151 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
5152 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
5153 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
5154 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
5155 that breakpoint.
5156
5157 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
5158
5159 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
5160 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
5161 arrays actually contain only short strings.
5162
5163 * Shared library breakpoints
5164
5165 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
5166 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
5167
5168 * Hardware watchpoints
5169
5170 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
5171 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
5172
5173 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
5174
5175 * Annotations
5176
5177 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
5178 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
5179
5180 * Improved Irix 5 support
5181
5182 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
5183
5184 * Improved HPPA support
5185
5186 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
5187
5188 * New native configurations
5189
5190 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
5191 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5192 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
5193 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
5194
5195 * New targets
5196
5197 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5198 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
5199 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
5200
5201 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
5202
5203 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
5204 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
5205
5206 * Fixes
5207
5208 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
5209 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
5210
5211 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
5212
5213 * Irix 5 is now supported
5214
5215 * HPPA support
5216
5217 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
5218 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
5219 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
5220 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
5221 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
5222
5223
5224 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
5225
5226 * User visible changes:
5227
5228 * Remote Debugging
5229
5230 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
5231 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
5232 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
5233 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
5234 debugging info for the mips target).
5235
5236 * DEC Alpha native support
5237
5238 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
5239 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
5240 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
5241 Alpha-specific notes.
5242
5243 * Preliminary thread implementation
5244
5245 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
5246
5247 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
5248
5249 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
5250 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
5251 for details).
5252
5253 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
5254
5255 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
5256 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
5257 call methods, ...etc.
5258
5259 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
5260
5261 * User visible changes:
5262
5263 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
5264 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
5265 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
5266 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
5267
5268 Filename completion now works.
5269
5270 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
5271 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
5272 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
5273
5274 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
5275 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
5276 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
5277 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
5278 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
5279
5280 * DEC alpha support
5281
5282 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
5283 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
5284
5285
5286 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
5287
5288 * Testsuite
5289
5290 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
5291 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
5292 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
5293
5294 * C++ demangling
5295
5296 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
5297 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
5298 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
5299 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
5300 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
5301
5302 * Simulators
5303
5304 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
5305 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
5306 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
5307
5308 * New targets supported
5309
5310 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5311 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5312 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
5313 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5314 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
5315
5316 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
5317 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
5318 GO32 memory extender.
5319
5320 * New remote protocols
5321
5322 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
5323
5324 * New source languages supported
5325
5326 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
5327 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
5328 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
5329
5330
5331 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
5332
5333 * HP Precision Architecture supported
5334
5335 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
5336 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
5337 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
5338 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
5339 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
5340 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
5341
5342 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
5343
5344 * Faster and better demangling
5345
5346 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
5347 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
5348 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
5349 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
5350 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
5351 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
5352 symbol lookups.
5353
5354 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
5355 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
5356 compiler does not actually implement.
5357
5358 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
5359
5360 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
5361 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
5362 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
5363 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
5364 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
5365 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
5366 fix.
5367
5368 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
5369 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
5370
5371 * Improved configure script
5372
5373 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
5374 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
5375 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
5376 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
5377
5378 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
5379 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
5380 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
5381 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
5382 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
5383 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
5384
5385 * Documentation improvements
5386
5387 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
5388 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
5389 before submitting changes.
5390
5391 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
5392 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
5393 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
5394 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
5395 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
5396
5397 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
5398 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
5399 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
5400 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
5401 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
5402 around this problem.
5403
5404 * New features
5405
5406 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
5407 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
5408 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
5409 the target program.
5410
5411 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
5412 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
5413
5414 * New native hosts supported
5415
5416 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
5417 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
5418
5419 * New targets supported
5420
5421 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
5422
5423 * New file formats supported
5424
5425 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
5426 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
5427
5428 * Major bug fixes
5429
5430 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
5431
5432 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
5433 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
5434
5435 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
5436 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
5437 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
5438
5439 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
5440 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
5441
5442 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
5443 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
5444 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
5445 libraries.
5446
5447 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
5448 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
5449 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
5450 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
5451 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
5452
5453 * Internal improvements
5454
5455 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
5456 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
5457
5458 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
5459 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
5460 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
5461 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
5462 shared code that handles any of them.
5463
5464 * New command line options
5465
5466 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
5467
5468 * Mmalloc licensing
5469
5470 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
5471 General Public License.
5472
5473 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
5474
5475 * Host/native/target split
5476
5477 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
5478 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
5479 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
5480 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
5481 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
5482
5483 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
5484 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
5485 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
5486 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
5487 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
5488 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
5489 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
5490
5491 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
5492 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
5493 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
5494
5495 * New hosts supported
5496
5497 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
5498 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5499 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
5500
5501 * New targets supported
5502
5503 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5504 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5505
5506 * New native hosts supported
5507
5508 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5509 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
5510 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5511
5512 * New file formats supported
5513
5514 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
5515 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
5516 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5517
5518 * New commands
5519
5520 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5521 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5522 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5523
5524 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5525
5526 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
5527 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
5528 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5529 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5530
5531 * C++ improvements
5532
5533 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5534 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5535 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5536
5537 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5538
5539 * Major bug fixes
5540
5541 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5542 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5543 by the compiler.
5544
5545 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5546 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5547
5548 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5549 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5550 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
5551 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
5552 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
5553 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
5554
5555 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
5556 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
5557 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
5558 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
5559
5560 * AMD 29k support
5561
5562 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
5563 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
5564 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
5565 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
5566 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
5567
5568 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
5569 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
5570 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
5571 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
5572
5573 * Remote interfaces
5574
5575 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
5576 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
5577 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
5578 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
5579 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
5580 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
5581 each instruction being stepped through.
5582
5583 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
5584 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
5585
5586 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
5587 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
5588 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
5589 processor with a serial port.
5590
5591 * Configuration
5592
5593 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
5594 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
5595 supported, and what files each one uses.
5596
5597 * Library changes
5598
5599 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
5600 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
5601 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
5602 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
5603
5604 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
5605 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
5606 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
5607 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
5608
5609 * Documentation
5610
5611 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
5612 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
5613 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
5614 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
5615 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
5616 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
5617
5618 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
5619
5620
5621 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
5622
5623 * Better support for C++ function names
5624
5625 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
5626 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
5627 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
5628 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
5629 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
5630
5631 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
5632 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
5633 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5634 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5635 for the list of formats.
5636
5637 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5638
5639 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5640 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5641 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5642 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5643 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5644 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5645 this problem.)
5646
5647 * New 'maintenance' command
5648
5649 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5650 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5651 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5652
5653 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5654 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5655 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5656 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5657 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5658 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5659
5660 The following commands are new:
5661
5662 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5663 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5664 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5665
5666 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5667
5668 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5669 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5670 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5671 read after argv processing.
5672
5673 * New hosts supported
5674
5675 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5676
5677 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
5678
5679 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5680 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5681 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5682 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5683 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5684 It costs extra.
5685
5686 * New targets supported
5687
5688 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5689
5690 * More smarts about finding #include files
5691
5692 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5693 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5694 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5695 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5696 the one that contains your sources.
5697
5698 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5699 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5700 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5701
5702 * Interesting infernals change
5703
5704 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5705 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5706 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5707 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5708
5709 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5710
5711 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5712 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5713 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5714
5715 See the ChangeLog for details.
5716
5717 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5718
5719 * New machines supported (host and target)
5720
5721 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5722
5723 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5724
5725 * New malloc package
5726
5727 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5728 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5729 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5730 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5731 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5732 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5733
5734 * info proc
5735
5736 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5737 'help info proc' for details.
5738
5739 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5740
5741 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5742 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5743 possible.
5744
5745 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5746
5747 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5748 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5749 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5750 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5751 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5752 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5753
5754 * Cross byte order fixes
5755
5756 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5757 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5758
5759 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5760
5761 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5762 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5763 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5764 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5765 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5766 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5767 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5768 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5769 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5770 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5771
5772 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5773 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5774 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5775 slower, but makes future operations faster.
5776
5777 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5778 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5779 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5780 use is:
5781
5782 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5783
5784 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5785 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5786 shared across multiple host platforms.
5787
5788 * longjmp() handling
5789
5790 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5791 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5792 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5793 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5794
5795 * Solaris 2.0
5796
5797 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5798 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5799 reading symbols.
5800
5801 * Bug fixes
5802
5803 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5804 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5805 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5806
5807 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5808
5809 * New machines supported (host and target)
5810
5811 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5812 (except core files)
5813 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5814 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5815
5816 * New machines supported (target)
5817
5818 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5819
5820 * C++ support
5821
5822 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5823 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5824 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5825
5826 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5827 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5828 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5829 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5830 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5831 released.
5832
5833 * New features for SVR4
5834
5835 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5836 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5837 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5838
5839 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5840 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5841 it prints the address mappings of the process.
5842
5843 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5844 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5845
5846 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5847
5848 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5849 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5850 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5851 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5852 same code linked statically.
5853
5854 * New Getopt
5855
5856 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5857 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5858 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5859 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5860 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5861 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5862
5863 * Bugs fixed
5864
5865 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5866 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5867 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5868
5869
5870 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5871
5872 * New machines supported (host and target)
5873
5874 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5875 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5876 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5877
5878 * Almost SCO Unix support
5879
5880 We had hoped to support:
5881 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5882 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5883 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5884 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5885
5886 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5887
5888 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5889 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5890 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5891 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5892 reqired (if any).
5893
5894 * New Readline
5895
5896 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5897 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5898 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5899
5900 * Bugs fixed
5901
5902 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5903 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5904 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5905
5906 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5907
5908 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5909 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5910 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5911
5912 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5913 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5914 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5915 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5916 version 2.
5917
5918 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5919 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5920 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5921 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5922 situation somewhat.
5923
5924 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5925 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5926 methods.
5927
5928 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5929 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5930 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5931
5932
5933 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5934
5935 * Improved configuration
5936
5937 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5938 Porting BFD is simpler.
5939
5940 * Stepping improved
5941
5942 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5943 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5944 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5945 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5946
5947 * Bug fixing
5948
5949 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5950
5951 * New host supported (not target)
5952
5953 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5954
5955
5956 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5957
5958 * Multiple source language support
5959
5960 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5961 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5962 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5963 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5964 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5965 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5966
5967 * GDB and Modula-2
5968
5969 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5970 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5971 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5972 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5973
5974 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5975 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5976 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5977
5978 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5979 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5980
5981 * set write on/off
5982
5983 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5984 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5985 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5986 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5987 effect immediately.
5988
5989 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5990
5991 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5992 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5993 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5994 examining core files.
5995
5996 * set listsize
5997
5998 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5999 The default is 10.
6000
6001 * New machines supported (host and target)
6002
6003 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
6004 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
6005 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
6006
6007 * New hosts supported (not targets)
6008
6009 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
6010
6011 * New targets supported (not hosts)
6012
6013 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6014 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6015 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
6016
6017 * New remote interfaces
6018
6019 AMD 29000 Adapt
6020 AMD 29000 Minimon
6021
6022
6023 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
6024
6025 * New Facilities
6026
6027 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
6028
6029 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
6030 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
6031 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
6032 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
6033 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
6034 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
6035 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
6036 stub on the target system.
6037
6038 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
6039
6040 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
6041 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
6042 object file types such as a.out and coff.
6043
6044 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
6045 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
6046
6047
6048 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
6049
6050 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
6051 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
6052
6053 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
6054 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
6055 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
6056
6057 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
6058 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
6059 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
6060 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
6061
6062 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
6063 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
6064 it is already running. Default is ON.
6065
6066 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
6067 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
6068 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
6069 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
6070 Default is ON.
6071
6072 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
6073 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
6074 or the value of the environment variable
6075 GDBHISTFILE.
6076
6077 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
6078 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
6079 HISTSIZE.
6080
6081 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
6082 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
6083 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
6084
6085 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
6086 history expansion will be performed on
6087 command line input. The default is OFF.
6088
6089 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
6090 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
6091 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
6092
6093 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
6094 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
6095 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6096 variable TERM.
6097
6098 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
6099 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
6100 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6101 variable TERM.
6102
6103 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
6104 ``set width'' instead.
6105
6106 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
6107 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
6108 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
6109 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
6110
6111 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
6112 is OFF.
6113
6114 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
6115 "raw" form if off.
6116
6117 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
6118 like instructions.
6119
6120 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
6121
6122
6123 * Support for Epoch Environment.
6124
6125 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
6126 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
6127 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
6128 window.
6129
6130
6131 * Support for Shared Libraries
6132
6133 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
6134 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
6135 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
6136 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
6137 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
6138 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
6139 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
6140 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
6141
6142 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
6143 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
6144 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
6145
6146 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
6147
6148
6149 * Watchpoints
6150
6151 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
6152 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
6153 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
6154 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
6155 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
6156 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
6157
6158 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
6159
6160 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
6161
6162 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6163 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6164 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6165
6166
6167 * C++ multiple inheritance
6168
6169 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
6170 for C++ programs.
6171
6172 * C++ exception handling
6173
6174 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
6175 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
6176 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
6177 handler's context).
6178
6179 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
6180 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
6181 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
6182
6183 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
6184 current stack frame.
6185
6186
6187 * Minor command changes
6188
6189 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
6190 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
6191 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
6192
6193 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
6194 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
6195 frames without printing.
6196
6197 * New directory command
6198
6199 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
6200 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
6201 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
6202 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
6203 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
6204
6205 * Configuring GDB for compilation
6206
6207 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
6208 for more details.
6209
6210 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
6211 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
6212 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
6213 where the program that you are debugging will run.